September 22, 2006

Compliance with Open Source licensing

Roger Longhorn shares an interesting read regarding Open Source software in a recent thread to the Freegis-list. He references some licensing issues from this month's WIPO Newsletter for SMEs... "Continued acceleration in the use of open source software has made developing and implementing an open source compliance program a business necessity. While using such software, however, most companies do not take any measures to comply with the requirements of open source licenses. This may result in unintended violations of open source licenses and other potential liabilities. To avoid this risk and also to realize other benefits, the author Jason D. Haislmaier, a partner in the Intellectual Property Group of the law firm of Holme Roberts & Owen LLP, identifies the best practices that companies could use to close the *open source compliance gap*." See the paper at http://www.hro.com/pubs/closingthegap.pdf